What the future will bring?

[BigSi]

Has the term ‘Domestic Electrician’ always been around, or is it something that’s been created though competent persons screams.......sorry, schemes?

When I was at college all those years ago, an electrician was expected to (and taught to), work with everything from conduit, to micc, to T&E.

But now days, it seems that you choose which sector to work in, domestic, commercial, or industrial. I’ve worked with sparks who won’t touch industrial (or anything 3P), and others who won’t go near domestic.

I wonder what the future will bring. Plasma injector power transfer conduits......nah, don’t touch them! :sad3:

 

[trev]

It's all part of the dumbing down process Bigsi. When I served my time it was like you say, at the end of ityou were expected to know your way around everything. Now though it seems that the colleges are spitting out guys who have no idea of anything outside of their own little blinkered world.

 

[Guest111]

The trouble is these domestic sparks do a couple of years on houses and then think they can do anything.

 

[Guitarist]

The trouble is these domestic sparks do a couple of years on houses and then think they can do anything.

Indeed. We had a guy last year asking for help with a fault and, when asked about his experience, he claimed to be a qualified electrician. Turns out he had been helping pull cables in on new builds for a year, but had never connected a thing. After all that "training" he considered himself good enough to go self-employed and work in peoples' homes.
If these are the guys now calling themselves "electricians" then heaven help us all...

 

[monkeyelectric]

Well i've been wiring plugs and changing fuses for 6 months or so now so i reckon i'm ready for wiring a nuclear power plant, i mean how hard can it be?

 

[Sintra]

This "domestic electrician" title is just a farce. How the fkuc can anybody be qualified in 5 weeks. I know houses aren't the most complex installs but IMO a full apprenticeship should be completed before being let loose on any installation.

 

[Guitarist]

You can be shown the very basics on a test-bench in 5 weeks, but you will have no idea about chasing, board-lifting, filling, and all the other trades which are essential to do a good job in someone's home. More importantly though, nobody in just a few weeks will have any experience in fault-finding, which is probably the most common thing any electrician has to do. It makes me laugh when I get called out and the previous "electrician" has spent a week trying to work out a basic fault. It then makes me cry for the customer when I find out what they've charged them for basically scratching their head.
Personally I find it absolutely disgusting that these training schemes are allowed to trade.

 

[trev]

It then makes me cry for the customer when I find out what they've charged them for basically scratching their head.

Surely no fix=no fee. At least in my world it does, if I'm called to a fault I know that I can find and fix it. If I didn't know that I'd tell them and walk.

 

[Adam W]

Judging by some of the threads people start here asking what they're 'qualified to do', I can see it getting worse - we'll get people who just go around changing socket fronts, light fittings and plugs but it you want it tested you'll have to get someone else in to do that, I can see "FAT Testing" (Fixed Appliance Testing) becoming a reality and it will become the modular training system which people seem to think it already is, working your way through the 'adding a socket module, the 'rewire module' and up to the 'testing module' for those who wish to offer that service.
Obviously the lower end with people testing just the plug-in appliances and changing light fittings will become even more competitive with customers being unwilling to pay a 'premium' for someone to come and fill in the gaps doing the "FAT testing", I&T, commissioning etc.

These people doing the monkey work are still going to need a living wage to feed their kids, but instead of paying one person one decent wage, customers will end up paying 3 or 4 different people just to do a simple job, like when you phone up Virgin Media and get passed around different departments.

 

[MDJ]

This "domestic electrician" title is just a farce. How the fkuc can anybody be qualified in 5 weeks. I know houses aren't the most complex installs but IMO a full apprenticeship should be completed before being let loose on any installation.

Great post and I agree, the 5 week courses are a rip off to the person doing them as well, the whole system stinks and many people don't know they are being scammed until they come on here bragging they did them and get shot down, I feel sorry for them TBH.

 

[Doomed]

What will the future bring?
Higher taxes and my death.

 

[trev]

What will the future bring?
Higher taxes and my death.

My my, what a happy little soul you are today

 

[kingeri]

I consider myself a 'Domestic Electrician' but not a 'Domestic Installer'. But that is because I chose to focus mainly on domestic. I did my apprenticeship, worked for a couple of years as an assistant maintenance spark in a factory and didn't like it at all. Went over to domestic through choice, but I can fault find and design circuits without coming on here asking basic questions. Now I am a maintenance spark again, but for the council's pay and display parking ticket machines, but otherwise I mainly still do domestic and light commercial.

 

[markc123]

The term 'electrician' will be gradually phased out. Thats what our future holds unfortunatley.

Every tom, dick and harry will be sparkying - the schemes are running a business and not caring for our trade anymore unfortunatley. Why we can't go the route of gassafe is beyond me and sort out all this nonsense once and for all. Sparkying is no different in terms of technical knowledge to being a gasfitter IMO (infact sparkying is probably more technical) but you don't see the gas industry getting hijacked with fast track courses.

Need to restore pride back into our trade.

 

[SPARTYKUS]

Surely no fix=no fee. At least in my world it does, if I'm called to a fault I know that I can find and fix it. If I didn't know that I'd tell them and walk.

Rock on. I am cocky and know I will find it! Most times within an hour. But depends on fault. Theres always one...

 

[oldtimer]

Go back 30 years when Thatcher ripped the guts out of this countries industry and she took the incentive away for companies to take on apprentices guys like me who trained in Industrial & Commercial were working on their own in their 4th year so when guys who served their time on houses or what we called Hoose Bashers came on sites and had to be trained up again with conduit/trunking/Micc/3 Phase motors etc so there has always been Domestic Electricians it just that 30 years ago they were graded the same as everybody else.

Now guys like me seen the writing on the wall and moved into alarms/HVAC-BMS controls/Facilities maintenance /management then we had the property boom in the mid eighties and we needed more electricians and as the older generation were retiring and no apprentices were coming through the system the Schemies hit on this Domestic grade or in other words a new revenue stream . Fine you say they are doing a good thing because they are registered charities well yes but if you can drive sales up you can vote for big pay rises and bonuses hence why they are now changing things every 2-3 years to get more revenue.

So fine but then we opened our doors to our European cousins who came in with their "electricians" card and we were legally obliged to recognise them even if they were a bit dodgy plus their mentality was they did a bit of everything ie tiler/plumber/electrician as I am seeing today.

So whats wrong well the Schemies in my view allowed the domestic installer scheme to get out of hand to such an extent that they have saturated the market with 5WWs because they cared more about sales than standards I call this the Golden Goose syndrome plus with the doors getting flung open to Romainia this is only going to make things worse. Also because Part P is unofficially dead in the water its time for change again so lets merge some Schemies and bring out an electricsafe registration system and hopefully people will not notice that they are taking in fees for a system that no one is policing.

By the way guys like me were saying 25 years ago that there should be an domestic electricain grade with a 2.5-3 year apprenticeship but no one was interested.

 

[trev]

Rock on. I am cocky and know I will find it! Most times within an hour. But depends on fault. Theres always one...

I'm exactly the same mate

 

[Guitarist]

Surely no fix=no fee. At least in my world it does, if I'm called to a fault I know that I can find and fix it. If I didn't know that I'd tell them and walk.

Totally agree Trev. Unfortunately, some guys out there with no skills or experience are claiming to be able to fault-find and charging a call-out regardles of whether they rectify the fault or not.
I spent years on industrial plant having my mentor create faults for me so that I could follow specific techniques using simple continuity testers all the way up to laptops connected to PLC units. I find it a disgrace to the profession when some guys can't even spot a break in a cable.

 

[kevyn]

I find in my area industrial sparks look down their nose at domestic sparks like they are inferior. Unfortunately half of them I know can't wire a house

 

[oldtimer]

I find in my area industrial sparks look down their nose at domestic sparks like they are inferior. Unfortunately half of them I know can't wire a house

Kev you will always get this and as I have said before if they had brought out a domestic spark grade years ago that would have sorted it but this goes back to the 30s housing boom where the wired houses in conduit so when T&E came out thats when the split happened and a lot of guys ended up doing domestics. Although in my a opinion there is a big difference between the 2 fields and would add it is easier for a I&C spark to shift into domestics but not the other way round ie for 3 phase distribution and theory